NAVAL BATTLES ON CANADA'S GREAT BAY

 

When I was younger, a boy of 10 or 11, or more likely 13 or 14, I'm not too sure, I daydreamed a lot. Like most young boys of that age, I would suppose, I saw myself as a kind of hero, brave and pure of heart, swashbuckling my way through life...

I often dreamed myself to be a naval officer, in command of wooden ships-of-war, with tall masts and white sails, gliding upon the high seas, always on the look-out for enemy ships. A particular daydream of mine was to go into the Northern Sea, with a small fleet of those ships, then follow a narrow passage leading into a great bay, a hiding place where the dreaded, hereditary enemy lurked...

Then and there, I will battle against enemy ships, capturing them or sinking them, fighting with big, black cannons that hurled big, black balls at great distance, trying to outgun good crews led by tenacious captains. Then and there, I will land with my men, in small embarcations, near this or that enemy fort, besieging it and taking it by storm, in order to raise our glorious flags upon its broken ruins. Those were days to remember, when we went into the great bay, and made it ours.

It was a cold, deserted, place, vast and empty, apparently devoid of much life, save for some bears on the shores, some of them polar, all of them bemused to see what was probably to them great masses of wood, with parts of clouds attached to great trees, manoeuvrering strangely on the choppy waves. How could they understand the designs of men, how could they understand the dreams of a young boy?

I am much older now, in the autumn of my life, nearing my inevitable demise, year by year, but I still remember. I still remember that long ago time when I convinced myself that I was a new Pierre Le Moyne, sieur d'Iberville, born in Montréal, in the French colony of Canada, who fought long and hard for the greater glory of the Royaume de France, and also of the Roi-Soleil, better known as Louis le Quatorzième du nom, many centuries ago, against the usual enemies of my people, in the great northern bay whose current denomination honors the memory of one of their explorers, a man named Henry Hudson...

I am an old, peaceful man, now, almost harmless, to be honest, but beware, there's still a d'Iberville hidden somewhere inside my heart...

Pour la France!   Pour la Nouvelle-France!

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Le_Moyne_d%27Iberville

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PLUS:  @charles.millar3 (Twitter)